Peterborough city centre wireless internet PE1

Peterborough City Council is suspending its project to introduce wireless internet access around the city centre.

The council says it is putting the project on hold, but according to the proposed budget the plans will not go forward until 2016 at the earliest, if at all.

The project, which required £270k of start-up costs and around £120k of funding each year after that, has been controversial in some quarters. Council leaders saw it as a means of attracting shoppers to Peterborough, but critics regarded it as a vanity project.

The council’s plans are currently out to public consultation along with the remainder of its proposed budget, with responses due by early February 2011.